I've opened something here that should not have been posted, however there have been some responses that should be answered. I did it to myself.

Background for your question.

I was drafted in 1967 three months after I got married. I lived in Chicago at the time. I never knew of the protests at the Democratic Convention until sometime after.

When I returned I was against the war, joined The Vietnam Veterans Against the War and protested. The police left us alone because some had served there also.

The Women's march gave me the same feeling, people were finally standing up for what they believe just like the Tea Party

I came back with issues I didn't understand. My first two weeks back "in the world" as we called it were perplexing. People would ask "how was it over there"? I would say a few things and met a shocked speachless response. I learned only to talk about my experience with other war vets. I was told by the VA not to put Viet Nam on my resume, just my time in service and branch. People did not want to deal with us.

PTSD had not been invented so our issues were not addressed because the VA does not do a good job with that either.

We gave ourselves a Welcome Home Parade in Chicago 20 years later. We did it ourselves not our country and it was big, a four day event.

That is some of the background I think was needed to answer your question, there is much more.

This Holiday season was bad and I finally said something to non vets on Christmas Eve day when neighbors kept pushing to come and celebrate. I had never mentioned it to a non Viet Nam vet because I felt it was normal.

Christmas in Viet Nam. Christmas Eve we flew back from a mission and the grunts stacked their rifles in a triangle as usual. Somebody had been sent some Christmas tree lights and strung them around the rifles to make them a tree. Some carols were sung.

The next day (Christmas) we went to our Huey's on the flight line, after doing the preflight went on our mission to pick up bodies and body parts and bring the body bags back. We were given the rest of the day off.

Viet Nam Christmas came back this past year bigger than ever.

Only in the past three years did I know about my issues with Agent Orange and PTSD. None of it goes away.

I want people to think about recent vets back from wars to understand they need support. Waving a flag and shouting USA, USA does nothing. They need your help to try to be normal and can be hard to deal with. We need to do what we can to help them.

The Movie MASH was real, it was just like that. When I returned the movie came out and for the first half I thought it was Viet Nam and they got stuck with come crappy old choppers to haul wounded.

A shout out to the Nurses and Doctors we sometimes dropped off wounded to. I never realised they had the worst part of the war every day. We all became numb and did our job after all, there was no way to quit.